Category Archives: Art

Photography

Sail Boston 2026

I wasn’t able to attend Sail Boston this year, but I did get to Charlestown to photograph some of the tall ships berthed there. It was a warm and windy night, but not as warm as the following nights, thankfully.

I missed seeing a number of the ships and was not able to go aboard any of them, but I am glad I got out. There were numerous people around when I got there after 9pm, but by the time I left after midnight, many had left. It was a lovely night by the harbor.

I really didn’t go there with a plan, though I knew I should bring my tripod, which worked wonderfully. I photographed several of the biggest ships. The SV Mircea is seen lit up in the photos below.

Boston Harbor / SV Mircea SV Mircea

I tried various low shutter speeds and made EV adjustments of between -2 and -3 stops. I pretty much settled on -2.33. It lent an atmospheric quality to the photos with the flapping flags and moderated waves.

At the end of the pier the SV Mircea was on, I got a wide vista of the ships along the Sea Port side of Boston Harbor.

Sea Port District / Boston Harbor

The SV Dar Młodzieży, seen in the photo at the top and below, was berthed next to the SV Mircea:

SV Dar Młodzieży

The USCGC Eagle had a fuel truck parked next to it about amidships. Photos from the stern didn’t look right with it, but changing the angle and a bit of cropping worked better.

USCGC Eagle

Finally, the primary residents of the Charlestown Naval Yard, the USS Constitution and the USS Cassin Young:

USS Constitution USS Cassin Young

I took multiple photos of the Cassin Young/Eagle/Constitution with different shutter speeds. I liked a photo with a long shutter speed that made the water more even. Alas, I missed focus on the Cassin Young in that picture. Best to set focus and then adjust settings when on a tripod. Lesson learned.

You can find more photos on Flickr at this album:

Sail Boston 2026
Photography

Not gone …

Haven’t posted in far too long. Here are some mediocre photos I took at a work outing to tide you over while I figure out what else I should write:

Silent Office – A silent office building waits for tenants to occupy it while a near by small forest plots its next move.

Silent Office

Office in Green: Calm inside and out.

Office in Green

Plus a small number of 2026 photos I posted on Flickr:

Alex Marthews telling us what we are up against
Fun, Games, Photography, Pirate Party, When Imagination Fails

What was done last year. 2023 Edition.

This year’s non-work accomplishments in statistics. FWIW:

Pirates

Organized one, two, ? surveillance camera mapping events.

Attended the Boston Anarchist Bookfair and organized the Pirate Party table. Worked the table for both days with Steve, Micky and Alex.

Organized the pirate contingent of and marched in the Trans Resistance March. Marched in the XR Boston contingent at Honk! Took too many photos/videos. Still haven’t finished editing or posting them.

28 Pirate News recordings. That count was fewer than the forty we recorded in 2022. Ran 24 meetings and four quarterly conferences. Didn’t send enough email updates. Probably sent too many social media posts.

Photography

Created 4016+ photos. Shared 106 on my two Flickr accounts and more in text messages to family and friends. Particularly happy with this one:

Northern Mockingbird

Took my son’s high school yearbook photograph. He was pleased. Photographed 20+ co-workers for id photos. Learned a bit about NX Tether.

Attended Victoria Sambunaris‘ talk at the Photographic Resource Center‘s Speaker Series. Attended PHSNE‘s Photographica for the second year.

Attended at least two school drama performances. Photographed one of them. Haven’t posted the photographs. Really should.

Attended two art exhibits (Hokusai and Sargent). Wanted to attend two more, but didn’t. Took too many photographs. Haven’t posted a single one. 🙁

I reviewed the Ulanzi foldable half cage.

Reading

Bought or received twenty nine “books”. Read six “books” fully, but didn’t keep to my 1/month. I use books in quotations since I am padding my numbers by including two Framelines Magazines, which I did read cover to cover, but that isn’t a big accomplishment.

Games

Played in one miniature game (at Havoc), which is the same number I played in 2022.

Finished painting 64 1/285th scale microarmor miniatures. They have been in a state of not yet done for years. Still need to Dullcoat them. Haven’t taken photos of them and posted them. Got part way through another 56. May finish those this month. They are wheeled vehicles, so may is the operative word.

Must have cleaned, glued and primed 500+ microarmor/nauts. Also, cleaned, based and primed 54 modern soviet airborne infantry stands. The basing was frustrating, but yielded the most satisfaction. Maybe I will write up my process.

The degree I increased my “pile of potential” when I should be finishing figures is depressing, so I will ignore it.

Office

Most of my office was done last year (?), but one wall remained that needed patching and painting as I have previous mounted electronics to it. I patched and primed it.

Realizing I was in over my head (decade old color matching, paint that finally dried in the cans, ugh), hired someone to paint it (and another room I patched and primed). They did a great job and dealt with my primer color misadventure. During the break, my friend David and I put up the wall shelves I have sat on for … 6 months?

Considering that the walls are not at aligned to gravity, I am pleased how it came out.

Now I just need to move books on to the shelves.

I’ll leave it at that and post about 2024 goals hopefully in January.

Fun, Photography

Nikon Zfc and Ulanzi Falcam Foldable Half Cage

I have been using a SmallRig cage with my Nikon Z 50 when recording handheld videos. Unfortunately, the Nikon Z 50 doesn’t use external power via a USB cable unless the camera is off. The Nikon Z fc does, but no one made a cage for it.

The Ulanzi Falcam F22 & F38 & F50 Quick Release Foldable Half Cage For Camera said it works with it and try it I did.

Pico review: it works

Short review:

I only played with it for an hour, but the Ulanzi foldable half cage worked effectively with the Nikon Zfc. It was pretty sturdy, though not nearly as sturdy as a full cage.

It does not come with a NATO rail attachment point anywhere, so I needed to attach a SmallRig Low-Profile NATO Rail, 50mm to the top of the half cage so I could add my top handle. I was able to move the camera around effectively that way. Ulanzi has their own Falcam enabled top handle so if you don’t have one, you can get theirs and attach it the top Falcam rail point.

There are three Falcam rail points: the top, side and bottom. The top and bottom are side to side. The side rail point is up and down. There are three 1/4 inch screw holes on the top and side and two on the bottom.

Folding and unfolding the cage was easy, and there are points every 45 degrees where you need to use a bit of pressure to rotate the arms. This feature helps since if the arms are not locked, your camera won’t suddenly rotate unexpectedly. The locks were secure, but you can get a little wobble if you don’t turn them completely to the lock position.

The Falcam quick release mount had locked and unlocked position. Only if you pressed it in the unlocked position, would it actually unlock and slide so you could take the camera off the cage. The mount is square and you can rotate it on each side and it will slide in and lock. However, with the FTZ adapter on, I found it more difficult to slide the quick release mount on in one direction, but not another. It should work, so I will play around with it and see what I did wrong.

I recommend it.

I posted this review at dpreview.com.

Fun, Living, Nature, Photography

Rockport 2023

Should have posted these photos from Rockport months ago, but better late than never.

Two Alone on the Lanes Cove Wall Nighttime Houses on the Water Harvey Reservation Path

This photo is a panorama that would have been improved if I had taken a picture or two of the left of the wall and the ocean. Lesson learned.

Lanes Cove Harbor M

I took the daytime photos with my Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8. The nighttime photos I took with my manual focus Nikon Nikkor-S.C. 55mm f/1.8.

Cornflower (Centaurea cyanus)

The full album is:

2023 Rockport Vacation
Books

What I read so far in 2023

I set out to read a book a month …

January was 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric H. Cline. Interesting overview of the centuries before, during and after, but so much of it was “here are a bunch of reasons why this series of events occurred, but we don’t definitively know and, oh by the way, we should keep this in mind because modern society has become too complex.” 2000 was more complex and interrelated than 1950 and 1950 was more complex and interrelated than 1900, and 1900 … you get the idea. Still worth while reading especially for what archeology has been able to figure out.

February was Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton. A very thick graphic novel, but a very personal story by Beaton of Hark a Vagrant notoriety.

March was 1985 by György Dalos. A sequel of a sort to Orwell’s 1984. Thought it was going to be more surreal, but sadly it wasn’t. The revolution will be banal and the counter revolution more so.

In April, I finished Rückzug: The German Retreat from France, 1944 by Joachim Ludewig. My one critique was that the maps should have listed the paths of units better. When the author is talking about roman numeral corp hq A or three digit division Y, moving from town B to mountain Z, it helps if the maps show how things went. With a large margin of error of course. Otherwise, it was a good book that demonstrated that the allies were caught off guard by their rapid pace (good problem to have) and didn’t recognize the extent of their logistics difficulties until the German lines firmed up in Germany and the Netherlands. Anyone recommend a good book on Operation Bagration?

Since then, I started a few books, but haven’t finished any of them in the months between then and now.

This September, I again picked up Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba. I purchased my copy at Porter Square Books, but the publisher, Haymarket Books, has a sale on it. Hopefully, I will finish it in September, but if it goes over to October, so be it.

Nature, Photography

Northern Mockingbird

A Northern Mockingbird visited our neighborhood. I was able to get several good photographs and one good video. Propping your lens on a car is a helpful technique for maintaining stability with a telephoto lens.

Northern Mockingbird Northern Mockingbird Northern Mockingbird Northern Mockingbird

A video of the bird singing. Did I mention that placing your lens on the top of a car really stabilizes the telephoto lenses. An external microphone would have helped here too, but I wanted to get the camera out of the house as quickly as possible and didn’t expect the mocking bird to stay as long as it did.

A crow also visited the area:

Crow Crow
Photography, Theater

Into the Woods

I attended the Somerville Highlander Theater‘s performance of Into the Woods in early December. As is my custom, I photographed the performance.

I decided to try something different and photographed it with an anamorphic lens so I could get more of the actors and stage. You can tell from the occasional lens flares. I cropped only a few of the images.

A big congratulations for the crew, cast and orchestra for a wonderful performance.

Into the Woods - Rapunzel Into the Woods Into the Woods Into the Woods Into the Woods Into the Woods Into the Woods Into the Woods Into the Woods

You can view all of the images in this album:

Into The Woods

Unfortunately, the latest Lightroom update decided to change the default to exporting the small versions of the photographs and not the originals. If you would like a copy of the original, email me.